The might of the sword

This is a truly wonderful book and I hope you'll believe that. I really do. More importantly, I hope the author believes it. Richard Cohen is the five-times British sabre champion and if he doesn't like what he sees on this page, I may find myself being hauled out of bed at dawn and run through with a yard of cold steel.

By The Sword is written in an easy, conversational style. Cohen's broad erudition and command of the subject offer the reader far more than the mere history of a weapon.

The sword is both the symbol and instrument of civilised authority and this book is nothing less than a summary of the development of our culture.

Fencing grew out of the medieval joust. Knights in armour didn't fight exclusively on horseback. They would issue challenges and attack each other on foot with sword, mace, poleaxe or dagger.

No weapon was capable of piercing breastplates or helmets so a combatant moving in for the kill would aim at the visor or beneath the armpit. A style of fighting was born that relied on the point of a sword.

The invention of gunpowder rendered protective armour obsolete. Weapons became lighter and more manoeuvrable, and soldiers began training in the art of swordplay. At the same time, the duel of honour became part of European culture.

Centuries of bloodshed followed. The Church officially disapproved of duels. But sovereigns such as Charles II tended to turn a blind eye and the practice flourished, despite all attempts to stamp it out.

Chivalrous formality is a recent fabrication. Seconds were not there to ensure fair play but to get a slice of the action - literally.

The 'dishonour' suffered by a challenger was often just an excuse for a group of men to meet in a field and hack each other to pieces. It sounds very much like the prearranged punch-ups of football hooligans.

In London, combatants would make for Hyde Park - 'a wild and desolate region' - or for the execution place of Tyburn (now Marble Arch) where the ground beneath the gallows was known as 'no-man's-land'.

Feuds could drag on for years or even decades, with unfinished business passing from father to son. In Naples, a nobleman fought 20 duels to prove Dante a greater poet than Ariosto. Finally, he admitted he had read the works of neither.

Towards the end of the 1700s, styles of dress altered and the stagecoach became popular. Gentlemen found it inconvenient to wear a broad-hilted sword in public.

Gradually, fencing evolved from a deadly hobby into a formal sport. It is one of only 14 disciplines to have featured at every Olympic Games.

Cohen is a relentlessly inquisitive author. The pages are supplemented with whopping footnotes full of fascinating titbits, including this from the film, The Adventures Of Robin Hood.

That has nothing to do with the history of swordsmanship but it fosters a winning atmosphere of impromptu erudition.

Swords generate legends. In medieval Japan, swordsmiths were prohibited from indulging in sexual activity for three days prior to forging a blade.

Samurai warriors used to test new weapons by inflicting 300 cuts on executed criminals. The sharpest were capable of bisecting a corpse from hip to shoulder with a single stroke.

In Europe, sword-makers from Damascus were especially prized for their skill. 'A new blade's quality was tested by placing it in a river, edge pointed upstream, where it was expected to cut floating leaves in half.'

The chemistry of iron alloys was not fully understood until the 19th century and it was only by trial and error that improvements in strength and flexibility were discovered.

Metal ore was added to chicken feed and the droppings were collected and melted down.

No one knew how the digestive juices of poultry helped phosphorise and toughen the iron.

During forging, hammering and tempering, the heated blade would be quenched in goats' urine which cooled the metal quicker than water and strengthened it by forming compounds of nitrogen.

According to one legend, a final tempering was carried out by plunging the sword through the body of a muscular slave. The dying man's spirit was thought to infuse the sword with strength.

Finally, a warning to visitors to Japan. If you hear someone say tsujigiri, run like mad. It means 'to try out a new sword on a chance passer-by'.